Recovery Media Does Not Detect Devices

This means using Recovery Media Builder on a newer version of Windows (ideally as new as possible), or using Boot Media Builder with a newer version of WADK, as long as it’s compatible.

There are two ways of adding drivers to the WinPE media: after booting from it (works until restart) or upon media creation.

It’s usually advisable to get drivers from the manufacturer’s website. OEMs typically provide drivers for download in a section called Support or Downloads. Driver packages often comes as .exe files that unpack themselves into a folder including files with extensions .sys, .inf and others. Unpack them somewhere.

Alternatively, you can retrieve the drivers from within your Windows. Launch Windows Device Manager (right click My Computer > Manage > Device Manager) and locate the device. Double click the device and open Driver > Driver Details. There, you should see several .sys files with the path C:\Windows\System32\drivers\. For each of them that lists a provider other than Microsoft Corporation, write down its name. Then open C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ (you’ll need to enable display of protected system files in folder options) and search for each filename you wrote down. They will be inside folders. Save the contents of each folder elsewhere.

Then re-create the media again while using BMB. When prompted, add the drivers by pointing the program to the folders you’ve previously saved. Alternatively, you can add the drivers after booting from the recovery media. While in the express mode, open Load Drivers, navigate to where you had copied driver folder contents, and select the .inf file. Repeat this for each driver.